Our weather has been consistently in the upper 80s and lower 90s this week. The only exception was a freak windstorm that occurred the other night with gusts nearly into four digits. My anemometer had no scale for the hurricane winds that swept off the mountain ranges and tore metal roofing off the tops of some of the buildings. In the case of the Bazaar location, the wind completely blew a row of the merchants huts up and over a fence and upside down on the other side of the fence. For some reason the fence remained upright and intact. It was almost like the Wizard of Oz in the beginning of the movie when everything is in black and white with tremendous amounts of dust with objects swirling around in the air such as goats. I swear I even saw Toto!
I’m a hair off on my time-table here as we actually bottled the brew at the end of Week 24. I was taking specific gravity readings daily until they were right and then we bottled. The fermentation process took six days and with exacting scientific calculations and notations, I arrived at a figure of 4.4% alcohol content by volume of this batch. Not too shabby.
The bottling process went pretty smooth although we had more batch than bottles. Although this may seem like a travesty, I had thought I might be close and saved a few of the half liter water bottles for overflow. It was a good thing as we required six of them. My only concern was keeping them as air-tight as possible. Ed and I torqued those plastic caps on with enough force that we will probably have to use a jack hammer to get them off. In any case, we boxed the bottles up and placed them in a cool, dark area where they will have to reside for at least a week. That was incredibly difficult to do as the smell alone almost made me want to gulp the beer straight from the bucket. I don’t know if I’ll last a whole week.
One of our SF guys came over in the early afternoon and asked if we could put together a BBQ that evening as he had invited a few Kyrgyz girls and some female nurses/medics from MedCom over for a little dinner. Ed and I agreed and frozen steaks, chicken breasts, and drummies were delivered for our preparation. We were even given a CVC helmet bag chock full of new spices in the bottles (never opened) which we could have our way with. We were excited! To make a long story short, Ed and I threw together a gastronomic masterpiece of BBQ’d meats to include perfectly baked potatoes right out of the coals of the fire. The unfortunate part of all this is that none of the females ever showed up and we made more food than could be consumed. This was OK for Ed and me, and we packaged up some of the chicken, steak, and potatoes for a future stew that we were planning.
Just prior to the actual barbeque, Pat (one of the SF guys) came by to take orders for vodka. He said he had a new source for exquisite Kyrgyz Vodka at a cost of $60 a liter. $60 USD a liter! Are you kidding me?! I told Pat that I was not interested and advised him that the last local vodka I purchased was terrible and it was $3 for 375 ml. At $60 a liter, it had better be fabulous and make me believe that Stoli and Grey Goose are rot gut! With that, Pat left to continue to find interested individuals among his clan. Later that night, Pat informed me that he and a couple of his buddies plunked down $300 for five liters of vodka. Obviously there was no discount for multiple liters. We’ll see how that goes.
Ed and I were packed up and gone from our BBQ site by 2200 local that night. The next morning we saw Pat in a sad state of affairs. He was clearly hung-over and had pictures on his camera of a couple of the girls that showed up much later in the evening. None of the girls were naked, but they were hanging on Pat and a couple of the other young SF guys and appeared in the pictures to be as inebriated as Pat and the guys. In my opinion, these girls bordered on hideous-looking, but I guess for Bagram there were 6’s. I also suppose the fact that they brought liquor (although the guys paid for it) and drank it with the guys upped there status in the wee hours of the morning to 8’s. Pat said we should have stayed until the girls showed up because they partied until 0530 in the morning at which point the girls left and somehow got back to wherever they came from. I told Pat that we were old guys and required our beauty sleep, not to mention that drinking dreadful vodka until 0530 in the morning is not something I prefer to do. Beer maybe, but not vodka.
We have this small building on Camp Ouellette that houses a large eight-person hot tub. Yes, a hot tub. It is fully enclosed with the pump residing outside, hence the reason the hot tub doesn’t work. The pump and or its plumbing have been damaged and have sat in disrepair for quite some time. I’m not sure why the hot tub it there, but the little storage area that is part of the building is chock full of chemicals for the water. Anyway, one of the SF Guys (Scott) asked me if I knew anything about hot tub pumps. I said no, but told him I suspected the problem was with the plumbing, not the pump. With that, Scott borrowed a few tools and set out to get the hot tub going. Two days later, Scott reported the hot tub was in full operation and that he was treating the water.
Ed and I decided to make potato soup. We had baked potatoes from the other night and acquired some carrots and celery. The steak and chicken we BBQ’d were tossed out as I was concerned with their goodness. Ed and I began peeling the carrots, celery, and potatoes with knives as we did not have peelers. I made chicken broth in our large pot and cooked it on the BBQ grill. I must say it takes a certain amount of effort to get the heat right. Once the broth was to my liking, we added a case of the low-fat, recombined, boxed milk, potatoes, the vegetables, and bacon. Yeah, bacon. I micro-waved three pounds of bacon until it was crispy then broke it apart by hand. I dumped it and the residue into my pot. I boiled my concoction for about an hour and added sour cream and a flour, garlic, and onion mix that I prepared separately then threw in to give the soup a little more flavor, texture, and thickness. The soup looked and smelled fantastic although I was displeased with the thickness. That milk had the consistency of water and my soup was thin. The real test was coming as I had a bunch of the guys and Ed waiting around to give it a taste. I’m happy to tell you that it tasted wonderful and most of us went back to the pot for thirds!
The electrical engineer showed up this week to wire our C Huts for power. He spent a couple of hours hooking them up and running the lines. He even hooked it up as 110V power as requested. This is so cool because we are not only going to be mere paces from our work, but we will have a lot more room and privacy not to mention being able to regulate our own interior temperature. Speaking of Chigos, ours do not yet work on the C Huts. They have power, but for some reason are not churning out deliciously cold air into the C Huts. After a few attempts at getting them to work, Ed and I decided to go by KBR and drop a work order to get them running. The next day, a Chigo master showed up to work on the Chigos. He got one of them up and running right away, but said the others needed a couple of parts. He would return later that day to fix them. Unfortunately when he returned, he told us the Chigos were not on the property books and KBR would not fix them as they have no one to charge for the parts and labor. Hhhmmm, I guess we’ll have to go see the Engineers again.
I have finally decided to pack my long-sleeve clothing. It’s taking up valuable room in my already crowded armoire and forcing me to cram the short-sleeve stuff and shorts around it. Yeah, my gloves and fleece jackets are getting packed too. Fortunately, my Tuff Box has enough room for this stuff. I’ve debated whether or not to ship it home, but I know the second I do we’ll have a freak late Spring cold front move in and bury us with 17 feet of snow. As long as the locals are still wearing long-sleeve man dresses and coats in 90 degree weather, I’ll keep my long-sleeve stuff and pants here.
Ed ordered two Dirt Devil upright, bagless vacuums. He did this completely by accident as he ordered one, then forgot and ordered a second on the next day. I’m secretly suspecting that Ed is having a short-term memory problem. However, he gave me one of the spanking new compact upright vacuums to clean (well, suck surface layer dirt from) my Hajji carpet in my room. What a great surprise! I originally offered to pay half of the cost of the single vacuum that Ed was to order, but he declined. Once the two vacuums arrived (on the same day) I offered to pay Ed for one of them, but he again refused citing numerous other issues and the future of beer. Whatever; I am excited about my new cleaning implement! I rate it right up there with my beer and ice trays!
Speaking of beer, it has been a week since the bottling process and I could not wait another day. I know the longer it sits the better and smoother the beer will become. I know all the reasons I should be more patient and allow the full body and texture of the grains and hops and sugars to complete their complex dance of combination, but I just could not wait another hour. Ed and I started with one of the plastic bottles each. Our fears were quickly overcome by the astonishing flavor and complexity of a fine crafted brew. If it’s this good in a plastic half liter bottle, we should try the 22 ounce brown glass bottles! Yeah! Fortunately we had the good sense to stop there as I’m not sure I could have gotten up in the morning. We distributed the remainder of the plastic bottles to some of the SF guys to try. All feedback was very favorable and we are now considering just how quickly we can start to churn out batches. Our first thought was that we could produce a batch a week. The only problem is one of supply as we need a few more items. The second problem is one of storage. Ed and I are lightweights and it may take some time to work up to our two beers a day, ten in a week threshold. Yeah Dave, unlike your ability to pour six a night into your gullet, we’ll have to work our way up from the bottom. The good news is that I am willing to give it a try.
The hot tub is now a hot spot for ugly girls. It seems that is OK to a couple of our SF guys. The hot tub also carries a certain amount of incentive as now the girls are bringing liquor without the guys having to buy it. I’m fine with the whole process, but I wish Pat would stop showing me pictures of ugly girls. I informed him that his standards needed to come up and instead of alcohol induced 8’s, I expected him to find some real 8’s (OK, Bagram 8’s). He mentioned something about inner beauty just before I gave a short, incredulous laugh and called his manhood into question. Pat promised me that he and Jim would work at finding better looking girls although I’m not sure where as the influx of foreign nationals seems to be thin on looks.
This week’s picture is about two boys with two mugs that contain Bagram Brewery’s first batch of premium malt beverage. Yep, we look pretty upset and disgusted with the whole process, don’t we? Ed even found two mugs (we are referring to them as beer steins) for the grand tasting event appropriately decorated with U.S. and Afghan flags. Maybe we’ll use them more than once.
I am chomping at the bit to relate the goings on of next week! I know you’ll be utterly enthralled to hear about our feverish pace of work, wishing you could be a part of our upcoming Cinco de Mayo celebration, and wonder how we can make it through the day (or the night for that matter) without electricity and internet. I can’t wait to hear about it either!
TTFN,
Craig
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